One of God’s Most Important Words to Us

By: Carmen Tan | Outreach Worker in Kingston-Galloway

We are so excited to be back in school year programs with our children and youth. Over the next few months for bible time, all our sites will be exploring and learning about God’s Character. 

We were inspired by the Character of God by Tim Mackie bible study plan. Exodus 34:6-7 encourages us to reflect on one of God’s most important words to us in the Old Testament. It’s God’s description of His own character that is revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai in the book of Exodus. 

“6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” Exodus 34:6-7

As God describes Himself in Exodus 34:6-7 it doesn’t describe Him in abstract terms yet it summarizes based on His actions when He interacts with the Israelites. And as we look at it from a bigger picture, God’s character continues to be revealed throughout the Bible, in every single book. God continues to show us compassion, grace. We see how God is slow to anger, overflowing with loyal love and faithfulness. 

So far at Kingston-Galloway, we have spent some time learning about God’s compassion. God is a compassionate God. He hears the cries and suffering of His people. When the Israelites were in Egypt, God heard their cry and sent Moses to help them get out.

“So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” Exodus 3:8

When God promises us something, He never breaks it.  In times when we feel like we are alone, we remind our kids God is always there. We need to go to Him.

God’s ultimate expression of compassion is Christ. Sin got in the way between us (sinners) and God. The only way for us to be together with God again was Jesus dying on the cross in our place. 

As we experience God’s compassion, God also reminds us to show compassion towards others. Compassion means to be deeply moved at something you see, an intense emotion that encourages you to take action. When we are in programs, we remind the kids to be compassionate and be kind to another. Right after our bible lesson about compassion, the kids found themselves in situations where they could be kind and compassionate or mean and rude. It is always easy to say but hard to take action.  

We hope that over the next few months, the children at Toronto City Mission will learn how God is not an abstract God. God is a living God, always with us, and is able to learn to identify what God’s character is like. 

Come join us to learn more about God’s character through Bible Project’s study plan.

Teen Depression and Anxiety

By: Rachelle Alcazaren | Outreach Worker in Kingston-Galloway

Statistics: 

• 1 in 5 people in Canada will experience a mental health problem or illness each year

• Anxiety disorders rose up to 20% in the last 5 years, and continue to rise along with hospitalizations for suicidal teenagers

• 1 in 3 adolescents aged 13-18 will experience an anxiety disorder

• Use of cannabis and alcohol by teens and younger adults has increased during the pandemic, with solitary substance use becoming more common. 

• More than a ⅓ of youth received mental health services in an academic setting ex. school , college, etc., but with the pandemic they are going without extra help

• Canada’s youth suicide rate is the third highest in the industrialized world

• Mental disorders in youth is ranked the second highest hospital care expenditure in Canada, surpassed only by physical injuries

• Only 1 in 5 children who need mental health services actually receives them in Canada

Our world is becoming even more dependent on technology than ever before. Because of the pandemic, our whole worlds revolve online, which is especially true for teenagers and children in school. Our connections have gotten broader in this world, but to our demise, they have gotten shallower as well. They are exposed to a number of people all at once on the internet, but sit alone in their rooms all day. The pandemic has only made it worse. There is a great need for deeper connection and relationship, but we aren’t able to have that at this time. Hangouts are replaced by FaceTime calls and Zoom sessions, and the only people we have to talk to that are physically near us, are our families. Unfortunately, not every teenager gets along with their families. It might be harder to share their inner thoughts and feelings with their parents and siblings. There are some youth in our own community of Kingston-Galloway that have shared their struggles with this issue. Especially concerning immigrant households, the youth have shared similar differences in culture, language, and ways of thinking between themselves and their parents that make it particularly difficult to find a middle ground. In general, our connections in this world consist of many people who only know us at face value, with only a few that know where we are at spiritually and emotionally.
Fostering relationships as a teenager is one of the most important factors in development. People who genuinely invest in a teenager’s life with care and commitment shape who they are and who they will become as people. At TCM, we invest in our teenagers through programs that build their character, leadership and relationship with God. Throughout the year, youth are able to participate in our Teens Leading Community Program (TLC). Here, youth learn and develop various skills, learn responsibility and grow their faith. They learn to be leaders in their very own communities. After all, who knows the community better than them? The TLC’s are a big part of our other Sonshine Day Camp and KIC programs.
Through these programs, they’re able to interact with kids in their community and help lead and guide them. These programs are vital to the community because it provides a place for youth to grow and cultivate their skills in a safe environment. An environment that not only cares about their education, health and well-being, but also their spiritual lives.
The fact that social media has ultimately replaced relationships (to varying degrees depending on the person) is a truly concerning fact. People are feeling more lonely than ever, especially now that everyone is in social isolation due to the pandemic. Social media also shows the best parts of people’s lives, and it can bring a person’s self-esteem down to see their own “reality.” Anxiety and depression is becoming more and more common in children, youth, and young adults. I am not saying that social media is the one true cause of everyone’s mental health problems, but that it is one piece in a puzzle of other factors causing increased mental health issues in today’s world.

Other Causes Could Include and Are Not Limited To:

• High expectations and the culture of achievement in today’s society

• A scary world: news articles from all over the world can be found by a click of a button. We hear and see stories of terrible things happening all over the world every day - something that is possible now because of technology 

• The unknown nature of the pandemic 

• Stressful home environment

• Hormonal changes in mood

• Social environment and social isolation 

• Remote learning because of the pandemic- days are long, lonely, and it’s hard to get academic help

How Can We Be There For Our Children and Teenagers? 

1. Be aware of mental health issues and don’t be afraid to talk about it with your child and/or youth. Fostering an environment of love and acceptance is important for their development. 

2. Listen without judgement or waiting for the opportunity to talk. It’s easy to dismiss our child/teen’s problems as dramatic. Sitting there with presence and purpose instead of dismissing it or having the need to give advice might be just what they need. Sometimes you don’t even need to talk! 

3. Older kids might not want to talk, and younger children might not have the words to express what they’re feeling. Establishing an environment that they can be comfortable in can take time.

4. Focus on resilience. Help them build skills that they can use to adapt to day-to-day challenges. What can they control? What can’t they control? Identify the little things that they do have control over and the things that only God has control over. Feeling helpless makes you more vulnerable and prone to depression and anxiety, so focusing on these skills can build their resilience. 

5. Model good self-care to your children. If you can’t take care of yourself, how will you be able to care for them? 

6. Learn the warning signs of anxiety and depression, and the symptoms associated with it. It is better to be knowledgeable than ignorant.

7. Get professional help. Here are some links to organizations that specialize in anxiety and depression in children and youth:

Kids Help Phone

• For children and youth

• Provides professional counselling and information and referrals for mental health, addictions and well-being

• Phone and online via web post or live chat

• Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

• Free, anonymous and confidential

• Call: 1-800-668-6868 to speak with a professional counsellor

• Text: CONNECT to 686868 to connect with a trained, volunteer Crisis Responder

Good2Talk

• For people between the ages of 17-25

• For post-secondary students in Ontario

• Provides professional counselling and information and referrals for mental health, addictions and well-being

• Free, confidential and anonymous helpline

• Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

• Call: 1-866-925-5454 to speak with a professional counsellor

• Text: GOOD2TALKON to 686868 with a trained, volunteer Crisis Responder

Mental Health Helpline

• All ages

• Provides information about counselling services and supports in your community

• Listens, offers support and provide strategies to help you meet your goals

• Provides basic education about mental illness

• Call: 1-866-531-2600

Ontario Distress Centres

• All ages

• A free telephone help-line for people experiencing emotional distress (including suicide)

• Provide listening and referral services primarily through highly trained volunteers

• Most centres are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

• Call a distress centre in your area

*information taken from Ontario Mental Health Services Children and Youth

Resources: 

• ADAA

• Healthy Children

• Haven Toronto

• NYU Langone Health

• Healthy Children

• Child Mind

• CTV News

• New York Times

• Psychiatrics Times

• Discovery Mood

• Dana Foundation

• The Power of Relationships (Video)

A Few Essential Zoom tools for Online Teaching

By: Lincoln Li | Outreach Worker in Flemingdon Park

Online video communications have been the norm these days. There is a variety to choose from that range from Google Meets, Google Classroom, Zoom, Facebook Messenger, to Skype. Over time, different platforms added certain features -(could be gimmicky or useful), for users to have a better overall experience. These features could range from filters, backgrounds, emojis, screen sharing, annotating and so on. 

I will be focusing on Zoom as this one has the most features useful for teaching. Not only that, but they have a few features that allow your audience to engage, interact, and participate. 

You do not want to be that person who always flips through a slideshow, reading off of it word for word and talking on and on and on. Unless it’s an information session. If it were in-person, it’s not enjoyable. If it were online, very much less enjoyable as there is a bigger disconnect due to a screen. It would be easy for someone to zone out and click off onto something else. (Our children and youth definitely do this). If adults have difficulty staying focused on a Zoom meeting, children and youth will also struggle with the same issue with attention span.

The key takeaway: You want your lesson or presentation, to provide ample opportunities for your audience to engage, interact, and participate whether they are adults, youth, or children.

Note: All video tutorials are hyperlinked

Here are a few useful Zoom functions:

1) Screen Sharing + Annotating 

This lets you share whatever you want to share from your computer screen. This can range from interactive activities, PDFs, Zoom’s whiteboard, a YouTube clip, or a PowerPoint. Having pictures or a colourful slideshow is a good starting point to get your audience engaged. A good balance of visuals and some concise text is ideal and don’t be afraid to insert interactive slides -slides with the intention of letting participants annotate via drawing, circling, stamping etc. 

Annotating lets you draw over whatever is shared on your screen. Your participants will also be able to see it. There are text tools, shape tools, stamp tools, and drawing tools that you can use. The best part is that your participants can also do those exact same things. You will have to clear your screen as it does get chaotic when there are too many doodles, but if you have a co-host, you can assign them the role of clearing the screen. There is also the option to prevent participants from annotating as well when you need them to focus. 

Here is a slightly more in-depth video

You can use the text tool to annotate if you do not have a graphic tablet or a touch screen. Clearing can be done by host and co-host(s). You have the option to clear everything, or just annotations done by others. 

If you hover over the ‘ . . .’ you can disable annotations when you want the participants to stop doodling.

I screen shared Zoom’s whiteboard as they are trickling into the meeting and getting settled down. They were free to doodle or play tic tac toe.
Somedays, I would share my web browser tab to a website with mazes, word searches, crosswords, or connect the dots and have the children directly annotate on these as well.

I purposely made an empty slide with the intention of having our youth contribute to our discussion question. As you can see, some typed out their responses, while some used their mouse/trackpad.
Other ways you can have your participants engaged is to provide them options (like a multiple choice) to circle or put stamps on via annotating.

2) Poll

 This is a good tool for gauging how much your audience knows or to see if they have retained the important pieces of information you’re trying to convey. It presents itself as a multiple-choice format.
You will have to turn the polling feature on in order for the poll icon to appear on the bottom bar.

The poll icon appears on the bottom bar. Clicking it will bring out the poll. Click ‘Launch Polling’  and your audience will be able to see the poll. You can observe the audience’s inputted response and see how many people selected which option. Once you’re done with your poll, click ‘End Polling’.

Selecting ‘Edit’ once the Polling window pops up redirects you to your browser. Here you can create, edit, and delete the polls for your meeting.

To pull out another poll, click on the down arrow to select your next poll. I usually make my individual questions into separate polls. This is because I can choose which question pops up first. If you were to input all three questions into one poll, all three questions will show up at once.

3) Reactions

 If the screens are turned off and you want some immediate feedback, using reactions can be very useful. Depending on the activity, each reaction emoji can represent a response.

Examples:

If you want someone to agree, get your participants to hit the ‘thumbs up’. If you want someone to disagree, you could use the ‘open mouth’ emoji.

You can also do true or false with a ‘thumbs up’ and ‘clap emoji’. And also just get them to give you a thumbs up if they understand just to gauge.

These are just a few ways to engage your audience as you teach or present. By getting them to participate in small ways such as these can make a long-winded information session, one that is fun and interactive. When your audience has opportunities to participate, learning, overall interest and engagement increases. 

Joys and Difficulties of support rising

By: Racheal Mulongo | Intern

Raising support is a part of a lot of different Christian ministries. It’s one of those things that some of us want to go through with a “bear it and grin” mindset. Where we just cannot wait to get it over with. And that’s understandable, it’s a draining process at times but there are also great joys that come with the journey of support raising. A friend once told me, “support raising is like a beautiful beast”. Beautiful because it is a time that God works on your heart and prepares you for ministry but still a beast because the process is not easy. However, just because it’s not easy doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, the times you learn and grow the most is through situations that aren’t always the easiest. 

Support raising gives you a chance to share your ministry with others and allows them to see how God is at work in places they might not have thought of. You also get the chance to hear from others how God is working in their lives. During the process of support raising, you get to invite others to join you as you step into what God is already doing. I think sometimes in the process of support raising the temptation is to think that you are carrying the weight of raising your funds on your own, but the truth is God is the one who is working in people’s hearts to give to your ministry. God cares far more deeply about the ministry you are stepping into. He cares so much more for people to come to know Him, for His people to experience restoration. No matter how passionate you are about the ministry you are stepping into, trust me God is far more passionate and zealous. 

Support raising is a growing process, a time where your dependence on God will grow because of how much your faith will be stretched. Your eyes are really opened to just how much God can do. It might be hard to see what God is doing or to understand how He is working during the process, but He is. In a similar way when the Jews were waiting for the coming Messiah, they did not expect Him to come as a humble baby, let alone a baby born in a stable.  The Jews were expecting a Savior to work in a particular way, to become a King and overthrow the Roman Empire, but He was working in a different way than they could not understand at the time. 

 There are some difficulties that come with the process of support raising. It can be scary and at times disappointing. There will be people you share with that might not understand your ministry or may not want to support you at that moment. It can be disappointing to follow up with someone for long hoping they would join your ministry only for them not to. 

At times you might not get a response from someone that you expected would get back to you and support you. What is interesting though is that sometimes the people you least expect are the ones God uses to support your ministry. 

Whether you’re someone thinking of support raising or you’re in the middle of the process and feel discouraged, you are not alone. Many have gone before you and God has provided. If God has called you, He will equip you and enable you to do his ministry at the end of the day. Maybe it won’t pan out exactly how you planned and expected, but God will surely make a way.

How to pray when you don't feel like praying

By: Katherine Ma | Outreach worker, Willowtree

Why might Christians not pray as much as they should? The Bible says to pray continually. We all know we should pray, and pray often. Yet I have heard so many people, and personally struggle, with even just remembering to pray once or twice a day. So people know they should pray, but don’t - and I think the reason is a matter of importance. Of priorities, of weight, of worth. It’s hard to admit - perhaps we just don’t pray enough because we don’t think prayer is worthy of our time.

It’s likely not a conscious thought: most people can say with conviction that prayer is of utmost importance. Instead, it’s not about needing to convince yourself with facts and knowledge, but letting it reach deep into your heart. And this is a work of only God Himself.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone” - Ezekiel 36:26

For me, this is a hard teaching. I’m the kind of person who wants to know steps 1 and 2. Who wants to know the details of the grand plan that only God knows and with infinite wisdom, has decided we are better off not knowing. I want to get from A to B; God wants me to trust Him with His own path. But eventually I accept that I can’t demand my instant gratification, but instead I am here in this present moment - broken, not yet there. So how can we pray in these places, when we know where we ought to be, but know we need to wait to be there? How do we pray in the waiting?

I don’t think I can give you a one-size-fits-all tool, but I found something that really helps me: Guided prayers. The Lord’s Prayer is a great guided prayer (after all Jesus Himself instructed His disciples to pray in this way). There are also many others found inside and outside the Bible that can serve as powerful tools in different situations. Many people are familiar with ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. However, in times where you can barely manage to fill in the blanks, you might benefit from a simple prayer like the one below.

1. You.

   • Start off with your focus on God. See the world through the lens of who He is, and you will see the world through the lens of reality.

   • Who is God? What qualities from Scripture do you remember about God?

   • Example: God, you are good. You are faithful. You are light. You are sovereign. You are always there, you are always near.

2. Me.

   • Next, be honest with where you’re at. God knows it all, and there’s no point hiding yourself. Really search your heart.

   • Who are you? How do you feel? What do you think about yourself?

   • Example: I am so broken. I feel so lost without you. I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. I need you so badly.

3. Please.

   • Don’t be afraid of asking God for anything. If you’re not sure it’s right to ask, ask it anyway and God will reveal the answer to you.

   • What do you want to ask God for? What does your heart want?

   • Example: Please, can you fix me? Can you give me joy? Can you help me to trust you when it is hard? Can you heal my hurt?

4. Thank you.

   • Finally, end with your focus on God again. Even if you can’t think of anything in the present to thank Him for, you can always thank Him for His love.

   • What can you thank God for? What do you actually want to thank God for?

   • Example: Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for being present with me. Thank you for your Son who died and rose again.

Whether or not you use this guided prayer, even if your prayer is simply ‘God, please answer me’ - be persistent in prayer, and I know God will answer you. That is not only my hope, but a promise from His Word as well.